As you’d have every right to expect from any man who can survive being shot six times in New Orleans, Steve Myers is pretty much the embodiment of “unstoppable”. The former Afghan Whigs and Twilight Singers affiliate fair fizzes with belligerent joie de vivre on Get Up To Get Down, a dogged reiteration of Mighty Fine’s noble mission statement – to combine the no-prisoners raunch of Detroit garage rock with the transcendent heat and flash of vintage soul revues.
Sure enough, the steamy, sleazy, greasy likes of Call Me Trouble, Something For Your Ass (which is exactly that: Anusol for the soul) and Black Train are magnificent – that long-anticipated threeway between the MC5, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and The Memphis Horns. In particular, the kidney-punching brass on the latter goads Myers into an admirably righteous frenzy as the track coalesces into a fireball over the coda.
There’s no faulting Mighty Fine’s devotion to the cause: they approach every beat of every bar with last-meal gusto and, in Meyers’ case above all, it’s probably not too much of a stretch to suggest that he performs as though his life literally depends on it. All that’s required now is a set of songs consistently strong enough to warrant such treatment.
